Conventional wisdom says Napoleon Bonaparte was a military genius who won every major war and battle until got devastatingly crushed in his Russia campaign by the severe winter, poor logistics, and the scorched-earth strategy of his Russian opponents. While conceding weather and terrain being a major factor, Tolstoy has nothing but contempt for the so-called military genius and strategic maneuvering of the generals: “What theory and science is possible about a matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be ascertained?"
One unascertainable force he refers to is the morale of the troops, the skittish human psyche that can easily flip the outcome of a battle one way or the other: "Sometimes—when there is not a coward at the front to shout ‘We are cut off!’ and start running, but a brave and jolly lad who shouts ‘Hurrah!’—a detachment of five thousand is worth thirty thousand, as at Schön Grabern (where the Russian army triumphed), while at times fifty thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz (where the Russians lost)."That same morale, applied to all Russian people, peasants and soldiers alike, was what drove them to expel the French out of their fatherland by way of guerrilla warfare and self sacrifice, not any smart strategies or military maneuverings by the generals.
It is probably for the same reason Tolstoy gives a much more sympathetic light to the Russian commander-in-chief, Kutuzov, a one-eyed war veteran field marshal who had been accused of leading tardy, evasive retreats instead of confronting the French army head on to stop their advancing. In Tolstoy's mind, Kutuzov did what he did because "he knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a commander in chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it in as far as that was in his power" without incurring unnecessary casualty on either the Russian or the French side.
The greatest antipathy Tolstoy shows toward in his novel, however, is the inhumanity war imposes on ordinary people.
During Pierre's imprisonment by the French in Moscow, he himself as well as other prisoners struck friendly, buddy-like relationships with their captors. But as the retreat from Moscow started, a mysterious force seemed to completely control their guards. "From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what seemed like personal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected contrast to their former friendly relations." And as the long march continued and the simple, happy Russian peasant soldier Karataev whom they all used to like got sick and could not keep pace with the procession, they shot him to death.
Pierre also recalled how a French officer examining his case was about to release him but was interrupted by his staff member and went on to care for other business thus leaving him in prison along with others to be executed. Both the officer and his staff member showed no intention of killing him, Pierre could tell.
Then who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of life—him, Pierre, with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was doing this? And Pierre felt that it was no one. It was a system—a concurrence of circumstances.
A system that kills, not only human bodies, but humanity itself.
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Two docu-videos on Napoleonic Wars for those who are interested:
Napoleonic Wars 1805 - 09: March of the Eagles:
Napoleonic Wars 1809 - 14: Downfall:
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